


Teammates

by sgtfarron



Series: Nights [4]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Almost 'fluff', F/F, If you consider fluff non-negative talk, Team ramblings, im sorry, neurodivergent, not too sad, or angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6157282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgtfarron/pseuds/sgtfarron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things you'll never understand. John Reese and Harold Finch not included.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teammates

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is just 2000 words of rambling about Shaw and her team. And Root. Also my aplogies if there is an inordinate amount of commas. That is sort of my default setting before I can actually edit.
> 
> Also, thought i'd put this out there that though each of these are, in all technicality, separate works, it may help ( but it isn't required) to read the others in the order they were written. Reason being that there are themes that start in them that are only touched on in others that may read better together.
> 
> Sgt-farron.tumblr.com

No matter how close you came to a very real apocalypse, having to  _ choose _ death (thankfully death didn’t choose you back), and enduring months of torture before that apocalypse could be truly averted, on the whole you’re glad with how the events from the time you joined the ‘team’ to present day unfolded. Were there certain details you wish you hadn’t had to deal with individually? Sure, of course. Months of torture from insufferable automatons like Martine and co. wasn’t exactly  _ fun _ , neither was dealing with Cole getting caught in the crossfire with the ISA, but if changing those things really had a course altering effect like you know they would have, you’re glad they happened.

Okay, you’re not exactly ‘glad’, but considering the alternatives to how things could have gone? You’d choose this reality. Things have had a way of working in just the right way to bring into balance after all the shit not just only your own life, but those of the few people around you that you take real value in as well (and, you suppose, the world as a whole considering you all managed to keep them all from unwittingly becoming permanent slaves to Samaritan).

From the beginning you appreciated Harold Finch (though more in hindsight than anything). Beyond his helping in saving your life initially, you always appreciated that after he first extended his offer to work with him and Reese and you declined, he did not ask again. Nor did he hold it against you, coming to your aid again afterwards when Hersh all but killed you. 

_ Space _ . 

That is what Finch afforded you. Agreeing to your means of communication that didn’t involve cellphones (something you could tell irked him greatly) and otherwise staying away was key to warming up to him (and in turn Reese), truly. Had he been too pushy you never would have kept coming back and you have no idea what you would have been doing with yourself at this point. There is a very real chance you’d be dead, you think, considering you’d have had no avenue for a real job doing the things that gave you something to  _ do _ and made you useful and, well, idle hands are the devil’s play things and all that. 

He gave you the last available option to be useful and as one might qualify ‘good’ before you’d become obsolete and start doing the kind of stuff to stay busy that you had purposely chose to avoid your whole life (because like  _ hell _ would you ever choose  _ retail _ or  _ office work _ before something that allowed you to express your more violent tendencies from time to time). 

Harold Finch is a good man.

You thought at first that his politeness was going to be a thorn in your side forever. But as time went on you began to appreciate that part of him, too. His insistance on referring to you as Ms. Shaw (you can’t recall if there was ever a time before the stock exchange he ever called you to your face anything but), and that distance such language insists on (even after you’ve accepted he matters to you in a way) is a good thing. If a Finch was the sort of man who felt the need to express just how much he  _ cares _ and  _ feels _ all the time, you never  _ ever _ would have agreed to help him.

Space, both physical and emotional, was something Finch understood well. That happens to be something John and he have in common. You can see how they came to work with one another. Reese had a hard shell, but underneath it he was as soft and sensitive as Finch. 

How exactly he ever ended up in your line of work you’ll never know. He never should have been let in; a psychological false-positive, that, had anyone given a shit beyond seeing his value weighed by technical skill, never would have been recruited. It’s a wonder that he has lived as long as he has; how he never ate a bullet. (Not someone else’s, he’s skilled enough to have survived this long without question, but his own. His softness usually leads to that sort of end, and for what it’s worth, you’re glad he was an anomaly). 

He’s enough like Finch to be able to do what you ragtag team does, in earnest, without having to think that he would ever deviate from the course. 

Because he  _ believes _ . 

He has his moments of crisis, but in the end he sees value in every individual saved. But he also understands how the real world works; the violence inherent in it. Which is why despite having insides softer than cotton he can stand by you and fire off rounds into perps without flinching; why you trust him to have your back, unwaveringly, even though you’ve never talked about it. He  _ believes _ in Finch’s cause but he  _ understands _ the world, and at the end of the day he’d do whatever necessary to make sure his team makes it out alive, same as you. 

Root on the other hand… You can tell that before she fell in with Finch she was never a team player, not once in her whole life did she ever play well with others. You can understand that to an extent. You never were much of a team player naturally but when you ended up in the marines you acted accordingly (not because you cared but because it was the job and you were committed to that job). 

You would go as far as to say that, really, she still isn’t a team player, but instead a chaotic element that does whatever she pleases. Sure, it kind of looks the same when she is willing to die for you and Finch (and by extension Reese), for the team, but it’s different. Because she’s sneaky and deceptive, willing to spin tales and work alone, breaking the rules of team work, forgetting she is actually a  _ part _ of said team if it means that you all live. Her motivations and sacrifices aren’t rooted in loyalty or 'the cause' anymore, but are in a realm you’ve never understood. 

Her feelings. Pure and not so simple. Intense and you really don’t like putting a name there because you don’t actually understand it. You know it’d be called love, though; its a crazy thing that winds its way around her mind and makes her act so… irrationally, with such disregard for her own self. 

You don’t like it. 

At first, when you could no longer deny the reality of what had happened, it made you simply severely uncomfortable knowing that you were a cause for such irrationality from an otherwise extremely rational, cunning, misanthropic woman who had not only survived but  _ thrived _ on her own her whole life. You let her give what she would anyway, because you like it, the gifts. 

Then it began to irritate you, because in her attachment to you she forgot herself. You didn’t care at first, but then you did. It’s a part of you that you don’t know how to intentionally tap into, and you have to choose to act on it (to listen very carefully to the muffled sound) every day, but it’s there nonetheless. She forgot herself, how to keep her own wellbeing a priority, and now you have to because it has value to you.

How that ever happened you really don’t understand. Of all the kind of people (running the whole length of the personality rainbow) how, if anyone, it was ever going to be someone like  _ her _ you got atatched to is the largest mystery to you. All you know is if she had just tried to insert herself into the ‘team’ from the get go instead of running around doing various errands for the Machine, being transformed from a manic caterpillar into a crazy-but-directed butterfly, the whole thing would have collapsed before it could really get off the ground.

Because you would have shot that manic caterpillar. And not in the knee (or the shoulder). 

(No Root means no interface and, well, as it turned out she was kind of integral to trying to move against the bigger threat; against Samaritan. You, Finch, and Reese never would have realized until much too late. Hell, even with her flashing big red warning signs in your faces Finch was slow on the uptake, too blinded by his own misgivings of her and his denial of things having evolved that far to act. You and Reese were just out of your depth).

You would have shot her because Root doesn’t do  _ space _ . The only reason you ever had any breathing room is because the Machine had her globetrotting during those early days. Whenever she was around she was all over you; speaking, flirting,  _ leering _ . Even now, after she got attached and really cares about you and how you are, she  _ tries _ to give you space (emotionally, physically) she just doesn’t do a very good job. For someone who spent the vast majority of their life alone, on purpose and without genuine attachments to anyone, she does a real shit job at the concept of space.

She never speaks her feelings but you can see the wheels churning in her head every time she looks at you, no matter how hard she tries to act blasé about a situation, how shallow the innuendo that tumbles out of her mouth in lieu of something solid, something  _ real _ .

But then she says your name. Not Shaw, but  _ Sameen _ or  _ Sam _ , and any pretending that there wasn’t something spilling out of her that she was trying so desperately to not name and you to ignore all together goes out the window. 

It started as a way to get on your nerves (names are a power-play to her and Finch, between each other and somehow it spilled over to you and Reese from time to time) but then it wasn’t. Sure, she’s hot and good with a gun but that never should have excused her from using your name like that. 

You never should have traded her use of your name for mind blowing sex and violent excursions. It seemed like innocent enough of a trade at the time, you’d hear her out, just roll your eyes, and got to get off in due time. It was just a name. Until it wasn’t. It always had been (before her). Sure you didn’t  _ like _ people calling you Sameen or Sam (you let Cole, but he was your partner and he knew where the line was) because it invited people to think there was a closeness that didn’t exist between you, but it was at the end of the day just a name. A word.

Turns out names mean a great deal to her.

So you let her have it because there isn’t a whole lot you can give her, but that you can even if you don’t wholly understand it yourself.

You figure there are a lot of things you’ll never understand about her. You’ll know of the things she’s experiencing, having observed and catalogued the same rainbow of expressions and motivations marring the rational judgement of other people your whole life, but you’ll never  _ really _ understand it. 

Things may have come around for yourself and the team; settled in a way were you all survived to see life after Samaritan due the course that various events took, but the thought that someone like Root, who was once so independent and self-sufficient, had been so willing to die on the mere thought that you were possibly still alive and in need of rescue has never quite sat right with you. Who were you to inspire such reckless abandon when it was clear that her objective value was so much greater? 

You just don’t understand and no matter how much you think it over you don’t you ever will.

So you try to focus on what you do understand. You understand Reese as a kind of brother-in-arms, a guy with whom you know has your back and to whom you’ll always return the favor in kind. Finch: a boss, but also a friend; a man who wears formality as an armor but also an invitation. To whom you’re glad that he never brought Fusco into the apocalyptic fold because he has a kid and you know endangering kids has no place in what you do. 

And Root: in understanding that keeping her alive and well undeniably matters to you now. In reconciling that it’s your job, now, to make sure she stays that way since it is kind of your fault she doesn’t prioritize it anymore. 

**Author's Note:**

> Not really satisfied so don't be surprised if I end up taking this down in the near future.
> 
> Update: So I edited a little bit but still seems sloppy to me. The tone fluxuaties too much/seems inconsistent to me, so my apologies.


End file.
